Adam Smith claimed that individuals' efforts to maximize their own gains in a free market benefits society, even if the ambitious have no benevolent intentions.

Thoughts on how this could apply to forthcoming ASIC Mining monoliths and their inpact on the Bit/Alt-coins ecosystem - IE: ASIC farms held by the few in monster data centers as opposed to the individual distributed...

Key term is "individual" in this day "individual" could mean company, conglomerate and no longer a true individual....

Adam Smith claimed that individuals' efforts to maximize their own gains in a free market benefits society, even if the ambitious have no benevolent intentions.

Thoughts on how this could apply to forthcoming ASIC Mining monoliths and their inpact on the Bit/Alt-coins ecosystem - IE: ASIC farms held by the few in monster data centers as opposed to the individual distributed...

Key term is "individual" in this day "individual" could mean company, conglomerate and no longer a true individual....

What are your thoughts from the Economist enthusiasts...

I think that the claim is a false generalisation, the effort can benefit the whole society, but doesn't necessarily leads to gains and can also damage it.So trying to apply this oversimplification on anything doesn't help at all.